lasercave | fine tangible and intangible media

*Yesterday, I had the privilege of exploring a human cadaver.

IAVI currently rents research lab space from a graduate medical facility in Brooklyn, though by the end of next week, we will be moving into bright, shiny new quarters at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, which was the largest military supply center during WWII, and is also the place Elvis shipped out from. (As a side note, in the wake of the financial crisis and subsequent loss of income to the city, the powers that be have begun to invest significant political capital in the BAT, in hopes of making it a leading bio tech hub, and a new major source of revenue for NYC. ) My lab, unlike most of the other IAVI labs, is housed in the main research building, and as a result my coworkers and I have become friends with some really nice dudes who work in orthopaedic/rehabilitation research dept. Their lab is filled with extensive and gorgeous collection of tools, including an electric saw that “cuts through bone like butter,” and a couple of the craziest/scariest machines designed to test fatigue and stress points in artificial bones and joints, one of which makes the entire lab shake while it’s being used.

As part of their research, they often go down to the basement of the building to retrieve bones, right out of the cadavers. And yesterday, I was invited along. The desired bone was quickly retrieved from the body (as medical students had already done a standard autopsy, and other researchers had taken various parts as well, leaving the body’s extremities in multiple pieces, although the upper body was still largely intact) I was permitted to poke around for awhile. The body belonged to an elderly, white, man, in his mid-sixties perhaps. One of the strangest things to me was examining the man’s thigh and seeing all the layers of fat and muscle and the cold, discolored skin, but looking at the hair on his thighs appear just as normal as can be, as if someone had forgotten to give them the memo. The insides of the body looked just like the inside of any other animal a few days after death, which I should have expected, but when you’re cooking and dressing a turkey (for example), observing the light meat and dark meat, the tendons and cartilage, the thought, “This is what I look like inside.” just doesn’t occur to you. His skin was fairly inflexible, except for his face, and (thankfully), his eyes were closed.

Beforehand, I was slightly worried about passing out or getting faint or nauseous, as I often experience a vasovagal reaction when I have blood drawn, but surprisingly I was fine, (about half an hour afterwards, I became very nauseous while describing it, though that could be attributed to the the hangover I was working through at the time). Any anxiety I was experienced was very much overshadowed by curiosity. I have to confess, it’s a slight relief to know that during a gross anatomy lab, I wouldn’t be the first person with my head between my knees (not that I would be ashamed if I was, it would just be an incredible inconvenience).

So…yesterday, I had the privilege of exploring the insides of another human being. Pretty overwhelming, pretty crazy.

*Please not that the lack of specifics is out of my desire to prevent anyone from getting in trouble as a result of this blog post.